Cinema
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Peter Weir · 1975
Synopsis
On Valentine's Day 1900, the boarders of Appleyard College, a girls' school in Victoria, set off on a picnic at the foot of Hanging Rock, a volcanic rock near Mount Macedon, with two teachers. On the rock, the only watches in the party stop at noon. Miranda, Marion, Irma and Edith ask to explore the heights; Edith comes back down alone, terrified. In the evening, the teachers return without Miranda, without Marion and without Miss McCraw, and the police search the rock in vain. A young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, resumes the search with Albert Crundall.
Context
The film adapts Joan Lindsay's novel published in 1967, whose foreword led readers to believe in real events; the author remained evasive, and the film, with its precise dates and places, sustained the illusion. The screenplay is by Cliff Green. Financed by the Australian Film Development Corporation, British Empire Films and the South Australian Film Corporation for about 440,000 dollars, it was shot at Hanging Rock and at Martindale Hall, in South Australia. Released on 8 August 1975 in Adelaide, it earned more than five million dollars in Australia. In 1998, the director removed seven minutes from it.
Who it is for
A film in English, all atmosphere, released in France under the title Pique-nique à Hanging Rock.
Prizes and reception
The film that, according to Britannica, brought its director an international audience, and one of the founding acts of the Australian revival.
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